pped on the
edge of a wide bog. The hounds were giving fierce tongue in the forest
on their left and their nearness sent Nathaniel's hand to his pistol.
Neil saw the movement and laughed.

"Don't like the sound, eh?" he said. "We get used to it on Beaver
Island. They're just about at the place where they tore little Jim
Schredder to pieces a few weeks back. Schredder tried to kill one of the
elders for stealing his wife while he was away on a night's fishing
trip."

He plunged to his knees in the bog.

"They caught him just before he reached the swamp," he flung back over
his shoulder. "Two minutes more and he would have been safe."

Nathaniel, sinking to his knees in the mire, forged up beside him.

"Lord!" he exclaimed, as a breath of air brought a sudden burst of
blood-curdling cries to them. "If they'd loosed them on us sooner--"

He shivered at the terrible grimace Neil turned on him.

"Had they slipped the leashes when we escaped, we would have been with
poor Schredder now, Captain Plum. By the way--" he stopped a moment to
wipe the water and mud from his face, "--three days after they covered
Schredder's bones with muck out there, the elder took Schredder's wife!
She was too pretty for a fisherman." He started on, but halted suddenly
with uplifted hand. No longer could they hear the baying of the dogs.
"They've struck the creek!" said Neil. "Listen!"

After an interval of silence there came a long mournful howl.

"Treed--treed or in the water, that's what the howling means. How
Croche and his devils are hustling now!"

A curse was mingled with Neil's breath as he forced his way through the
bog. Twenty rods farther on they came to a slime covered bit of water on
which was floating a dugout canoe. Immense relief replaced the anxiety
in Nathaniel's face as he climbed into it. At that moment he was willing
to fight a hundred men for Marion's sake, but snakes and bogs and
bloodhounds were entirely outside his pale of argument and he exhibited
no hesitation in betraying this fact to his companion. For a quarter of
a mile Neil forced the dugout through water viscid with slime and rotted
substance before the clearer channel of the creek was reached. As they
progressed the stream constantly became deeper and more navigable until
it finally began to show signs of a current and a little later, under
the powerful impetus of Neil's paddle, the canoe shot from between the
dense shores into the open lake. A mile away